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    Phones have gotten too big for me

    Originally written .

    Some basic information about my current phone, an iPhone SE 2 (2020).

    I'm currently using an iPhone SE second gen (the one that came out in 2020), and this phone is already kind of too big for me, and there are seemingly no better options left for me on the market. The iPhone 16e, the nominal direct replacement for my phone, is too big. I tried it, and it just did not work out for me. Not to mention that I'm not a big fan of the price increase that followed.

    My list of use cases for a phone is pretty short, but apparently finding a phone that fits my hands and provides all of these things is proving to be hard.

    There are a few more things that are nice to have, but far from essential:

    I could go on about the things I'd like a modern phone to be, but the world we live in is not perfect, so there's little point in ruminating about that. Some of the things in that 'must have' list are theoretically negotiable, but probably not practically so. I can read my email on my computer, and I can transfer my 2FA codes to a computer, but it quickly becomes very inconvenient to have to deal with that. Same goes for Bank-ID, which does still have a non-app alternative (and probably will forever, given that grandmas have to use it), but the app is a lot more convenient for any sane person. I could also change to a different bank to one that has a decent web UI, but I'm very happy with my current bank outside of that one little nitpick, and the app they do have is perfectly fine, so this feels like a losing battle.

    I definitely don't need top of the line performance. That's just been a nice bonus when going for an Apple phone. I was very happy with a mid-2012 Macbook Pro for my personal computing for a long time, and only switched away from that because I couldn't get a new battery for it from a reliable source. Most of the time on my phone is spent reading websites, playing music and being an alarm clock. I don't play games on it (well, I do have some games on it, but they're simple, and only ever used if I'm bored out of my mind), nor do I even use it to take fancy pictures. My hardware requirements are in theory satisfied by some pretty mediocre stuff. My software requirements are, atleast in theory, similarly lax. Most everything I need is availible on modern smartphones. It's just that the size requirement is getting very hard to fulfill.

    Given this situation, I have two choices from the get-go: Apple or Android. Android is a tough one for me, but not an impossible sell. With Google being the primary way to acquire software, and the background radiation of Google, a company I'd prefer to largely stay away from, permeating my phone even more than it already does, the whole thing becomes a tough sell. Ideally my Android phone of choice would only run the Google side of things in a sandbox or similar, and while this is possible to some extent, my must have apps are specifically the ones that have problems with running from that kind of environment: banking apps. But maybe Android has other things to offer, like say, the Fairphone? Their stated ideal of a phone is fairly close to what I would like, right up until you realise that they removed the headphone jack for nebulous/bad reasons. And their phones are too big for my hands anyway, so they're a non-starter no matter what good stuff they're doing.

    Android might be worth a shot, if only to have ventured to the other side of the fence and be able to see what's on offer that's not clear at first glance, and to conclude where the grass is greener (at-least for me). I have considered it before for other reasons, such as being able to sideload older versions of apps, so I'm not stuck with some horrible update, as well other nice things such as ReVanced. In theory, Android is probably a better fit for me, but I've had a 'better to deal with the devil you know than the one you don't', and Android is no saint in this world. Even outside the stuff I can figure out from reading opinions on the internet, the daily driver experience is one that can only be acquired by, well, actually daily driving one. But for Android to be an option in the first place, there needs to be a phone that can actually fit in my hand.

    Apple is where I've been for a long-ass time by now. I had the iPhone 5S, then the SE, and now the SE 2. The SE 3 I didn't need, and is getting a bit too old to buy new unless I get it for a decent price. The SE 2 and 3 size is a bit too much for my hands, just barely on the edge of what I can use. The 5S and original SE was perfect for me, so Ideally I'd go down to that size. Any size increase, pretty much no matter how small, over my SE, is gonna rule out a phone for me. Unfortunately, Apple doesn't supply me with any suitable options, short of the by now old SE 3, or a change of battery for my SE 2. Apple is a better home for me than Google, and has provided me with hardware that lasts a long time, and served me well during that time, but if Android can provide me with something that fits my hand, and Apple simply cannot, it's not like I can choose to not have a phone.

    In theory, a compleatly FOSS phone, like the Librem 5 or the Pinephone, is something I could very much get along with, even if the experience is less than perfect, similar to how desktop Linux is. Unfortunately, you run into the same problems that'd you do on custom Android ROMs, that is that some apps just will not work, because they rely on Google's tentacles being intertwined with the innards of the system. Even on a platform where you have complete control, and could Just™ run a different OS in a VM or whatever to support those specific applications, the groundwork just isn't there for that to be an acutal possibility on these phones. All the other software I need on a phone is fairly generic; I do need a web browser and a text editor on a phone, but even on a platform with very limited software support, all the basics are going to be covered; nobody buys a phone that can't make phone calls. It's just these edge cases that are a sore spot, and unless the duopoly can be broken, software support for platforms like this is never going to expand to the point that Random Bank Number 69 is going to support anything outside iOS and Android. Hopefully more complete support for Android apps can be implemented on these phones, say, through a compatibility layer like Proton, or in a docker or a VM, or whatever have you; so long as the experience is smooth, the exact details of the implementation is irrelevant. But no implementations seem to exist today, so the whole thing is a lost cause unless you're a developer with a lot of time on your hands. Like, I'm a big fan of FOSS because it (mostly) does the things I need it to, while I also agree with the ideology behind it. I don't use it because it's a hobby or an end goal in and of itself to use FOSS, and thus I won't use it to the detriment of other parts of my life.

    So, let's say I'm in on the idea to get an Android device for the first time in a long while. First stop: https://www.productchart.com/smartphones/small_android_phones, and for 'Screen', pick less than 5.5", and for 'Storage', more than 64 GB. And we're left with a whopping 3 options:

    The latter seems to be a genuinely decent option given its price. It also brings me onto another option:

    The Unihertz Jelly Max, supposedly the world's smallest 5G phone. Not that I care about the 5G, but it's a newer phone, is smaller than my SE, cheaper than buying an SE 3, and seemingly in several ways, a decent little phone. It apparently runs mostly stock Android 14, and has most of the features you could want from a phone (except a headphone jack, it does have an IR blaster though! Also no wireless charging). The only problems I have with it outside a few nitpicks are A.) It's Chinese, which while not automatically a problem, it's a yellow flag you should check for and have in mind, and 2.) Unihertz apparently just does not update their OS, like at all, except like one day one patch when they release it. At-least that's the vibe I'm getting from people's experience of Unihertz from older phones. That's gonna be a tough one to swallow for someone coming from iOS, where 5+ year support is basically guaranteed.

    That yellow flag also turns red after a bit more research, since the stock Android ROM does phone home to China. Great, as if Google wasn't bad enough. Now, this is fixable with a different ROM. There's even a guide. But it's just another thing to have to deal with that I'd rather just not have to. I've got enough shit to deal with in my life.

    The Ulefone track also led me to the Armor 20 Mini. A similarly nicely priced phone, who's only downsides seem to be A.) Its thickness, which is probably just going to move the size problem to a different dimension (can't really confirm that without holding one in my hand, and good luck finding a Ulefone in a store display), and 2.) It being Chinese, it has the same problem as the Unihertz in that is just is not going to get any updates.

    My second stop was GSMArena's phone finder, which, while it's a lot more up to date, doesn't seem to catalogue everything, since they apparently don't have the Unihertz models listed. Either way, it has a better filtering system, so I was able to filter by device size rather than screen size, so small-bezeled phones aren't ruled out. Unfortunately, it didn't tell me much I didn't know. After I put in my size requirements, as well as some basic filters to rule out the dumb-phones, I'm not left with many more viable options:

    Some other options did show up during my research, like the Sony Xperia 10 VI, which is definitely not too wide, but might be too tall. I'd be willing to at-least try something like this in a store display, if only to definitely rule out some options and be able to narrow my search with more confidence, but this model was released in 2024 and is already seemingly out of stock everywhere around here. I get how I need to go out of my way to purchase something from a niche Chinese brand, but Sony? If they aren't selling this phone anymore in the local stores, when they clearly were not even a year ago, I'll take that as them not wanting to sell it to me.

    If any of these had had /e/os or GrapheneOS or whatever support, such that I'd have some level of updates, and have Google be sandboxed, this would be a simple decision; one I'd be able to make even if I was brain dead. I would just reflash the phone on day one and go on with my life. But unfortunately, despite Android nominally being open source, it's hard to escape the clutches of Google if you go that way, and support for alternative OSes is not something you can just safely assume works. Although, given the low price of them, it might be worth a shot, if only to try out Android again. Time will tell if I end up deciding to try either of them out, or if I just get a battery replacement for my old SE. The Fairphone 6 is also apparently coming out pretty soon, so who knows? Maybe I'll get lucky.

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